KIM NAMJOON ONCE QUOTED “NO ONE IS BORN UGLY, WE JUST LIVE IN A JUDGEMENTAL SOCIETY”. Hello, I am Sania and today I am writing about something that we all have experienced, are experiencing and am sure will keep on experiencing for the rest of our life, Racism. So what exactly is racism? If you ask google it says “The belief that some races of people are better than others” but if you ask me I personally think it's much more than that. All the human race has experienced so many episodes of Racism in the form of color discrimination, and the chain doesn't stops there, its not always about the color people are racist about, Asian hate is a very burning topic nowadays, every day dozens of Asian-African people are killed in America for the sake Racism in a country where they consider as their very own. And its not that its just the common people facing it, we all know about the Meghan-Oprah interview where, the duchess of Sussex opened up about the poor mentality of the so called Royal family where she was continuously humiliated for not being a royal and in addition to it, white. Or whether it be the worldwide famous and beloved boyband BTS being called corona-virous by a German talk show host just for the sake of their increased popularity among the youths not just in their very own Asian country South Korea but also in this whole world. Passing homophobic jokes to the ones in such groups or the continuous misogyny that Women belong in kitchen and they can't drive, they are all the part of some poor Racist mind. And the incidents I am talking are just mere minute microscopic examples of Racism present among us. What we don't understand is it could be any of us some day or the other. Just keep yourself on the place of the little girl you just bullied for her color. Isn't it devastating to be shameful that is very own, ours. Making people feel bad about their own color, caste, creed, skin, hair or anything? You may argue that a simple non intentional joke with a friend wont be considered as Racism, but believe me my friend it is. Every journey starts with a single step and non intentional harmless bullying is a way good first step. Racism is destroying lives and we see it, everyday, yet we don't know how to react. Maybe because we are the ones who made the differences. We celebrate black history month to celebrate the brave one, but black! Isn't that Racist guys? Its just like saying “oh am not racist, I have a black friend” Why can't we see them just as brave people and not brave BLACK people. I don't know about you lot but if you ask me, as once quoted by comedian Vir Das I think the only possible way to defeat racism is creating a difference, not just the moral one but literal one. The most honest, simple, non-judgmental, and naïve way of getting rid of racism is acknowledging our differences. Yes acknowledging them because we are different, aren't we? my hair is different, my color is different, my skin is different, my values are different, and its ok to talk about it. If we talk about the fact that we are different, and acknowledge how we are different, why we are different, instead of pretending that everybody's the same and nobody is different, and yet in the subconscious counting the number of ways in which we are different, we all might be on the same page of acknowledgement and be less, Different. “Imagine jumping out of a skydiving plane and your parachute doesn't work. What memories would flash before you? Now imagine the parachute opened. How differently would you act when you landed?” That same rush of happiness would be on the little girls face when you will go to her and acknowledge her difference, instead of just bullying her for being different. Before ending my words I would like to say that, everyday when you see someone hating themselves for the way they are, hating their ethnicity, color, culture, race or anything, just remind them that they are beautiful, that they are the best version of themselves. As Alessia Cara song says, "Oh, they don't see, the light that's shining Deeper than the eyes can find it Maybe we have made them blind So they try to cover up their pain And cut their woes away Cause cover girls don't cry After their face is made But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark You should know you're beautiful just the way you are And you don't have to change a thing The world could change its heart No scars to your beautiful We're stars and we're beautiful" Thank you so much and have a non-racist day ahead.

“Why didn't you run away?” the interviewer sat with her hands placed together in front of her as she waited for the response. “I wanted to, so badly. I honestly never left because financially I was to scared to be on my own. For me, if I had ran away I would have cut all ties to them. So financially it was my only choice. Then I turned 18 and started to work. At that time I was told to help with paying bills and slowly they were placed on me entirely. I was pretty much coaxed into staying for as long as I did.” she nodded and continued her question “When did you decide to leave?” “Actually, all the way up to now they've stayed with me. 4 years ago I bought my house and they moved in behind me. Since our childhood we've made peace with how we were raised and the things we've been through. I don't hold any resentment and we live peacefully now. I'm mostly on the road so I rarely see them but when I do we have quality family time.” the blonde smiled “That's very sweet of you, I'm happy you were able to find your peace. Romantically, is that something that has happened in your life?” Melanie laughed “I was wondering when that question was going to come up. My love life has actually been getting better. There's some ups and downs but over all quite interesting.” a shocked look graced the interviewers face “Please do tell. We're all quite interested in hearing about your adventures.” Melanie gave a small smile and nodded. “It's not much, I've only had two past relationships they ended pretty quickly because we could never see emotionally eye to eye. There was one that wanted to much from me, and there was one that wanted very little. In the end, I ended with neither. Then when I had made peace with living alone and just focusing on my career, he showed up.” “I see, so are we allowed to meet the one who has melted the Ice Princess' heart?” “I've never understood how that nickname came to be. I would love to out my relationship, but that needs to be discussed by us. For right now there's no hurry.” “Aww, well I wish you two all the best and we're actually coming to a close but one last question tell us how was it that you two met? We understand not being able to tell us who he is but how about a how?” Melanie let out another laugh and conceded “Okay, okay, I'll give a short detail how we met.” She adjusted herself more comfortably. Smiling back at her interviewer she thought back to the moment that she met him. “A year ago today actually. I was out of the country doing a series of projects. At that time I was working on a series and a movie. I had a meeting with the producers, I believe it was during the day. that I had to visit before going back to the hotel. I walked in and there's people running around and just busy with their work. So as I was walking in he was walking out and we bumped into each other. Of course I recognized him but he obviously didn't know me. At least that's what I thought. We excuse ourselves and went our way. Well the Producer that wanted to work with me had introduced me to the ‘actors'.” She paused and looked behind the interviewer. He was standing there, with a smile on his face as he reminisced the day they met, the day that had ignited the love that he feels towards Melanie. She smiled and looked back at the person in front of her. “They walk in and there walks in the one person I would never have thought to work with ever, at least in this lifetime.” Melanie looks back towards him standing on the sidelines with a smile still adorning his face “That day I met the man who would show me how to love.”

Many times I kept thinking about the concept of loving myself but it was really blurry to understand. Years later, finally I understood the idea of self-love which I practice this step by step in daily life. Everything started way back when I had no idea of myself. When I entered high school to be exactly; I had everything. Starting from confidence, beauty, good personality, good status, everything okay. Like every teenager I was excited to make friends and I did, I make many friends, but I was not pretty aware that people could hate me. In the middle of the school year everything started to stumble inside myself and in my environment because of my friends. They were spreading lies about me, things like “She is ugly, she is a bad person, she is childish, she is rude, she is a rich girl” and many more. Hearing these things from people I thought they were friends hurt me and this is why I lie myself thinking it was not true. I kept lying me even do I heard those comments from their own mouths but still kept good relationship. My parents advise me that a lot of people would envy me and they would say things to hurt me but I could not believe it so I ignored them. I started to worry a lot, trying to change things that they did not like about me, trying to be the person they wanted me to become and shut their mouths but every time I did something was wrong. I faked who I was, I hide all my feelings pretending I was always strong and I lost my self-love and confidence but I still was looking for somebody that could see the light in me. I met somebody “especial”. At the beginning he was nice and understandable, I liked him because of it. I gave him everything and said to myself “he is helping me to connect to myself” but time passed and I realize that he was lying, he was seeing me as a trophy because for my features. I confirmed this when we were talking on the phone and he suddenly called me FAT so I asked him to say it again but he denied, he try to avoid the conversation so I follow but I could not recover from that in months, I did not eat, I exercise a lot but I was still me the “fat girl”. All my problems were building a mountain in my mind, it was heavy to carry. My friends hated my personality, my boyfriend hated me physically. Everything that made me strong once now was gone. Adding to those situations I hated myself for not been enough for them. Years passed that I felt there was no way of escaping from that maze. The idea of loving me did not appear in my mind during this unpleasant times but I wanted to go back to my old-self so desperately because of the many tears that escaped from my eyes because of them. The questions that seemed to stop me from doing worst things were Who Am I? Are They Going to Like Me Someday? Is This Person Still Me? After two years of feeling miserable and exclude everything changed so suddenly, I realize that letting everybody take advantage of me was making me weaker. I propose myself to change, for my own benefit. The changes were troublesome to make but everything led to the person I am today. These changes were: 1.- Knowing and being myself.- Been able to know myself led to not underestimate me in front of others or lower my confidence about who I was. This was hard to achieve. Every time I did not know something about myself, I asked a question and with this I got to know me a little more and I was determined to not let anyone change my essence. In this part of my life is where I still lack of knowledge about who I am but I still have time to find me. 2.- Family.- Through a lot of stages since I was a kid to what I am know they were by my side even do I kept a distance from them in my young years. Now I am sure there is no better place to run when I feel weak or stressed or I need to be lifted emotionally. 3.- Finding Self-Love.- It may sound weird but it was a song that made me realize that staying true to myself was not enough and I had to practice loving myself. “Epiphany” by Jin was the one song and it said something tremendously true for my young self “I was the one I should love in this world”. As soon as I learned what it meant I practiced this in daily life which kept me from change who I was from time to time. I learned to give love to myself because I deserve it. Yes, I made a lot of mistakes in my short life. But that is me. Tomorrow, I will be a little wiser than yesterday and I would understand better the idea of loving me that do not depends on nobody else, but that is still me. Now I realize that my bad decisions are my most important lessons, that formed the person that I am now, that I should be proud of me. Because I have to love the old me and the new that evolve within me. Like most people I lacked self-love. I still have a lot of stumbles in my journey, and I have many more fears, but I'm going to hug myself as hard as I can and will continue to love myself progressively, eventually. Slowly.